Transporters work by de-assembling something (e.g. you) and re-assembling it somewhere else. What if, when you’re dis-assembled, you die, and the re-assembled version of you is essentially a copy? Then every time someone steps onto a transporter, their final thought before death is that they’ll end up beamed somewhere else. And the re-assembled version (copy) just thinks that everything went fine and continues on like nothing bad happened.
I’ve often wondered though - say you do die, and get cloned at the other end… there hasn’t been a ‘gap’ in your consciousness as such. So were you ever truly dead? Even if you’re not technically the same person, as long as a version of you lives on.
If you die, you’re dead. The clone that appears on the other end, while being identical in every way, wouldn’t be the same you that you are and wouldn’t possess the same consciousness, an identical consciousness yes, but not the same one.
This was always my take on the matter, too.
I am my memories, my experiences, and the continuity of my consciousness, not the meat prison my mind is forced to reside in. If my consciousness continues, I am alive. Whether that’s this bag of meat, that bag of meat, or the Transmetropolitan-inspired nanite-cloud I wish I could live on as, I’m still me either way. There might be a difference, but from my perspective it doesn’t make a difference.